Southwest Corporate surpasses 1,500 branches
Dedicated implementation team helps keep service ahead of goal
Plano, Texas - Processing paper checks offers a number of challenges for multi-branch credit unions; challenges that Southwest Corporate is helping them to overcome—quickly. Although it introduced remote deposit services a scant three years ago, Southwest Corporate Federal Credit Union has just surpassed a significant milestone: 1,500 credit union branches and 400 credit unions now have made the corporate their remote deposit service provider.
Brad Ganey, Southwest Corporate’s Vice President of Item Processing, noted that the corporate achieved its goal of 1,500 credit union branches months ahead of schedule. “Credit unions have embraced this technology wholeheartedly. Another reason for the accelerated achievement of this goal is our dedicated implementation team,” said Ganey.
Southwest Corporate provides electronic image capture and real-time transmission of deposits to its item processing center for credit unions from Hawaii to Puerto Rico.
But it was a credit union with seven branches in and around Houston that help Southwest Corporate pass this most recent milestone. Primeway Federal Credit Union’s main office is located in downtown Houston. The distance to each of its branch offices ranges from just a few miles to 75 miles away in Brenham, Texas. Remote deposit, the electronic imaging and processing of checks, has enabled the credit union to shorten timeframes and eliminate costs imposed by these logistics, according to Vicki Squires, Primeway Vice President of Office Operations.
“Operations are definitely more efficient, especially with our outlying branches. Items are moving into the processing stream faster. Before, our Brenham branch would send checks to Houston for encoding one day and the following day the checks would be sent to the Fed. That’s too long. Now when we have an item with a two-day hold, it actually enters the system for processing before the hold expires,” said Squires.
Primeway opted to implement Southwest Corporate’s “Teller Capture” solution, which incorporates a check scanner at each of the credit union’s approximately 30 teller workstations. Tellers can process checks as they are accepted instead of at day’s end.
The decision has considerably improved employee quality of life, according to Squires. “Tellers close much faster, because they don’t handle encoding anymore and most of the processing is done before the end of the day. Plus, they don’t have to wait on the courier to arrive. We’ve saved money on courier charges, too,” added Squires. “One branch closes at 7 p.m. That gets expensive.”
Remote deposit technology has given Primeway tellers the ability to resolve problems faster. Instead of waiting for research to return from the main branch, tellers now can look up items on their own computers.
“Just having the history of items at every workstation has been a big benefit, said Squires. It improves tellers’ ability to make hold decisions. Research is no longer exclusively management’s responsibility. Operations losses have been significantly reduced.”
In addition to Teller Capture, Southwest Corporate’s suite of remote deposit services also includes Branch Capture and Business Capture. For more information, visit www.swcorp.org or contact a representative at 800-442-5763.
About Southwest Corporate
Southwest Corporate Federal Credit Union is a $14 billion Plano, Texas-based institution that serves nearly 1,500 member credit unions nationwide. Southwest Corporate’s broad financial service portfolio includes item processing and remote deposit services, investment services, ACH origination and electronic bill payment, ATM/debit card services, and correspondent services.